Kane Holiday jolted awake so suddenly he nearly pulled muscles in his neck and upper back. As he opened his eyes, dim lights around him slowly began to increase in brightness until they rested at a very comfortable intensity level. As he started to fidget and look around at his current state of affairs, tendril-like electrodes began to detach themselves from his forehead and upper cervical spine. He was lying on his back in some sort of chamber that looked like a bed with curved glass around it, separating his body from the large room he was in. Trying to remember where, and even who he was for that matter, was proving to be quite difficult. As he began to fidget some more, the outer glass case began to separate and retract, and Kane could immediately smell a combination of antiseptic and a vegetable garden mixed together in some odd blend that didn’t make much sense to him. He got up out of the bed-like chamber and immediately started examining his surroundings, finding himself in the middle of what was obviously a warehouse or cargo bay, boxes of assorted fruits and vegetables stacked in columns throughout the room. Slightly behind him were five more devices, exactly like the one he was currently leaning against trying to establish the balance needed to stand upright. Four of the remaining chambers had bodies in them, all of which he clearly recognized as people he knew, although their names and relationship to him were escaping Kane at the moment. It was obvious to the man that even though he knew he should recognize who and where he was, something in his brain was not recalling the information. What he did clearly remember however was being stabbed in the gut and falling to his death not more than 15 minutes ago. He saw that in his mind’s eye as clear as day, although looking down at his body, that clearly couldn't be the case. At it to the list of things that wasn't making a whole lot of sense at the moment, but as he stood there and took stock of his condition and surroundings, small things were beginning to come back to him.

For instance, Kane knew he was on an airship of some type. He remembered that the ship had a name, and that there was a rather sophisticated artificial intelligence entity that controlled the basic functions of that ship. He knew the vessel was called ‘The Hallowed Eve’, and that the A.I. was named after it. Or perhaps that was the other way around. He scratched his beard absently. About 30 feet in front of him in another chamber stood a large console in the middle of the floor with two bodies lying in pools of blood at its base. Kane began to move toward the bodies, quickly gaining his balance and kneeling at the head of the female figure; one he recognized and remembered as somebody called Alexandra. She was wearing a white laboratory coat of some type, and had multiple stab wounds in her chest area. Feeling for a pulse and checking her body temperature, it was clear she had expired some time ago. As he studied her, he felt a sadness in his heart, but couldn't really explain why. Turning to the other body, a man with a large frame and clothed in simple leathers, Kane noticed a syringe sticking out of his upper shoulder close to his neck. The contents of the substance that had once been in the vial were most likely coursing through the man’s body even now, although it appeared he had been dead nearly as long as Alexandra. ‘What in the hells is going on here?’ Kane could not help but wonder to himself. ‘If I could just remember more of what this place is.’

Standing up and directing his attention to the console in the middle of the floor, he saw a rather large monitor screen with the chambers housing his friend’s bodies shown as picture diagrams and labeled “dream pods”. Under each picture was the name of a person. On the two diagrams that represented the open pods where the names ‘Alexandra Raines’ and ‘Kane Holiday’. “That’s it!” he exclaimed out loud. “I am Kane Holiday, and those people in the chambers are my business associates,” he spoke out loud again, as if trying to convince himself he remembered something important.

Seeing the console blinking red in the upper right corner, Kane used his finger to push the heads up display in that location. A circular, blue-colored ring suddenly lit up and a voice his brain recalled began speaking to him through the console’s speaker system.

“Identity recognized. State your command.”

The voice was from the ship’s rather advanced Artificial Intelligence Network, which he knew as EVE. Kane thought a moment and replied to the machine. “Status Report.”

After the report, two more digital buttons appeared on screen, one labeled as “Terminate Drivers” and the other labeled as “Awaken Drivers.” It took Kane only moments to hit the ‘Awaken’ button, and all four of the pods began to beep as their protective glass separated and cyber tendrils began detaching from the remaining crew.

He breathed a temporary sigh of relief as his friends were beginning to wake up, and hopefully one of them was a skilled technician that could figure out how to stop the critical failure that sounded so incredibly ominous to the still bewildered man.

Thirty minutes later, the crew now up and around, the five companions had cleaned up both Alexandra’s and the stranger’s body and wrapped them up, placing them in another room to investigate in much more detail at a later time. The efforts of Victor Nova and Toros Nayl also managed to get the critical systems back online and functioning properly, averting a crisis that would have otherwise ended catastrophically. Sitting around a small table, the team began to discuss what they could piece together regarding what had happened over the course of the past two days, and what their next steps of action should be.

The first thing they established was that Kane was suffering the most from the “dream sleep” they had been in. They managed to put together that the body he was “inhabiting” in the fade was killed, and this must have had a rather significant effect on his ability to recall things. The technology obviously allowed people to enter into some type of dream-reality of a real place; although how it worked exactly or why they even traveled there was completely lost to them, at least at that moment. Victor Nova seemed to remember the most, although even that wasn’t a great deal. He shared with the group that he had been monitoring the team from the Hallowed Eve for well over a day. He thought he also remembered that things seemed to be going well until the readings of Alexandra started to go erratic and her vital signs began to spike unusually. Not long after this, the entire group began to experience similar status spikes, and Victor began to get nervous. He could not recall why he didn’t pull the whole team out then and there, instead deciding to join them by entering the dream fade himself. He seemed to think that in the 26 plus hours of time he had to study the machine and how it appeared to be working with his friends inside; that his ability to better control his “form” upon entering would be improved, and the risks would be greatly decreased. His mind still foggy though, he wasn’t totally sure of anything. All the talking and conjecture in the world would not explain how the strange man got on their ship however, and why exactly he was there. The data logs did show this intruder having a conversation with Alexandra right before he killed her though; declaring that the companions had stolen the ship and the technology upon it from his people. Unfortunately, none of the crew could confirm or deny if that was in fact true, for none of them remembered.

After discussing a few more things, it was decided that a quick examination of the ship was probably a good idea before taking any other action. Toros would begin his checks in the Weapons Control Room, Victor in Engineering, and Kane and Trevor would examine the navigation station and bridge. Meanwhile, Whisper would search the communication station for any signs of contact from an enemy vessel which might help them piece together how the stranger boarded The Hallowed Eve. Surely the worst of it was past them now...